Success Story: Romy – Healed from Lyme Disease, OCD and PANS/PANDAS

Diagnosed at seven years old, Romy has healed from chronic Lyme disease. She pretty much lives a typical teenage life. Amazing from where she started. Healing can happen.

Romy’s Journey

Romy was diagnosed at seven years old with chronic neuro-Lyme disease, Bartonella, Babesia, Mycoplasma, Chlamydia, EB, HV6, Strep, and multiple food and environmental allergies (IgE). She received Lyme congenitally from her mother, in utero, as well as receiving multiple exposures throughout her young life.

Pain and Tics

Romy lived with 26 excruciating pain areas all over her body – muscles, joints, literally any skin surface was painful to the touch. Romy had a very scary experience with a Lyme-induced seizure on New Year’s Eve in the beginning of her journey.

Full-body tics would prevent her from sleeping. At one point she could not run but “gallop” and drag her foot behind her. She experienced  facial tics and vocal tics, very swollen/painful throat, fatigue, sensory integration dysfunction, food/environmental allergies, thermoregulation problems, blurry/sandy eyes, encephalitis, and inflammation in every joint.

Romy had to be carried or transported in a stroller, shopping cart, or wheelchair in order to prevent fire-like pain shooting up from her calves. This pain was so sharp and agonizing, she would scream.

Romy experienced paranoia, night terrors, clinginess, OCD, aggression, fears, anxiety, and poor executive functioning. She had a pounding, frontal headache for over two years.

Too Sick For School

When she was first diagnosed in 2nd grade, she was too sick to attend most of the school year. She was unable to concentrate or do anything other than rest and watch TV. For two years, she couldn’t sit in a normal seated position in a chair, as it would trigger pain. So, Romy would stand or sit on top of her legs for short spans of time. Attendance was spotty through elementary school.

The social cost was most challenging in 5th grade. Navigating through the latest social landscape after missing school for three weeks (or eight months) from a relapse was stressful.

Just a few years ago, her eyes would “skip” words when she read, and thoughts would race ahead of her, causing recall to be difficult. She experienced ADD symptoms, including a visual closure deficit, and the inability to regulate her processing speed.

Her mind would race too far ahead while reading, or slow down computing math problems. As a result, homework took three times as long to complete. She benefited from tutoring for two years to help her with gaps of knowledge missing from school absences. On occasion, she would repeat a thought to someone, not computing that she just said that a few minutes ago or the previous day.

Interventions

At the beginning, when Romy was diagnosed with chronic Lyme, antibiotics were the only thing that stopped the progression of the disease(s). So despite her initial mother’s resistance to use them, Romy received many courses of antibiotics. Soon, homeopathy proved to be an invaluable tool for Romy’s healing.  Homeopathy was the only modality that was effective in reducing Romy’s agonizing pain.

After the microbial numbers were reduced to a more manageable level, herbs began to work. Romy utilized an important herbal protocol on top of antibiotics. Romy lost about 10 symptoms in one and a half months. After that, her family focused more on rebuilding and repair with supplements and other therapies.

Romy was on long term antibiotics along with comprehensive herbal and homeopathy protocols as well as a healthy diet and lifestyle approach.

Today

After years of tutor support and struggling academically (including doing homework with blurry vision, profound fatigue, headaches and brain fog), Romy is symptom-free and takes accelerated classes as a sophomore in high school. She’s also on the Constitution Team that competes with other high schools across the country.

Romy makes her diet and a healthy life-style top priority. She enjoys dance classes, kick boxing, rigorous workouts at the gym, and long walks on the weekend with her dog. She loves to cook with her dad and is a master at making green smoothies. Her family grows vegetables and cooks almost every night.

Romy’s mother recalls what she learned from her daughter’s healing journey: “Modern living demands being open and recognizing we are all individuals toting our own special blend of disease, metabolic deficiencies, lifestyle factors, genetics, toxic exposure, emotional baggage, what have you. Modern living demands that we partake and manage our own health. Every day there are hundreds of articles published on diseases. No way our practitioners can be experts on everything like in the old days. As a result, we must take ownership of our health and research and read every day. We must bring our knowledge to the table.”

And finally, “She is our little burst of light and love. She has always been that way, so disarming. Even at her sickest, she could eek out a sweet smile, or weakly laugh at something funny. Simply everything is better with her here with us,” recalls Romy’s mother. Read more of Romy’s story here.

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